Winter fly fishing

[sarce]

This time of year for me is when fly fishing starts to take a back seat - I'm not really into chasing steelhead, and decent winter trout fishing seems confined to a handful of streams.

Yesterday a friend and I went searching for pickerel for a change of pace. We didn't find any, but the lake we fished was loaded with very aggressive yellow perch. They were attacking my friend's bluegill imitations O_0

I'd love to be able to keep some variety in my winter fishing this year. The perch were fun. What are some other species that are a good target in the colder months? What do you guys like to fish for?

 

[Dave_W]

Don't give up on pickerel, they're pretty active in cold water. There's a lot of guys who eagerly wait for winter to chase pickerel in the Bay tribs like the Magothy River.

If the lakes and ponds stay clear of ice, you can sometimes find good panfishing for perch (as you discovered) and bluegills. They eat a lot of nymphs in the winter.

If the rivers stay ice-free as well, you can target walleyes, pike, and musky as they are all active in cold water.

Smallmouth bass in rivers can be caught FFing too if you can find the fish. Target them with low and very slow presentations. If there is a pattern of warmer, sunny days in mid-winter and water temps climp up around forty degrees, bass become more reliable.

 

[jifigz]

I used to fish hard for wintertime smallmouths in the Juniata. It is the best time of the year to land some hogs in my opinion. But yes walleye and musky and pike are great options. Although nowadays I generally target trout as my winter fish. I do wonderfully for trout in winter.

 

[GonnaFlyNow]

I fished all winter long last year and landed into some nice trout and smallies. There's absolutely no one fishing in the winter so you can explore all the spots you want. It's also a great time to prospect for new spring holes. I will be out all winter if the weather is close to what we had last year. I might also go to one of the state parks to hunt down some toothy critters!

 

[pete41]

If you can find a place where the browns moved upstream from a lake to spawn-good time to ambush them heading home-they will be a little smaller but usually hit best between 11 and 3-

 

[Hook_Jaw]

Musky are a great species to fly fish for in the winter with huge streamers.

 

[Dave_W]

If you didn't see this thread, it's worth checking out.

Winter Walleyes

 

[Beefheart]

Do you guys think wading for smallmouth in the Susquehanna is worth a shot during the winter? It's not something I even considered, but reading this, I'm starting to think perhaps I should try. I do know a couple deeper holes that I might be able to access on foot, but with the gauge showing the river 2.5 ft higher than when I last fished it in October and flows way higher I wonder if it'd even be safe.

Anyone wade the Susky in the winter?

 

[jifigz]

No I dont wade the Susky but I wade the Juniata year round. You don't need to find deep slow water. Any kinds of pockets or cut backs are generally enough to hold fish. I catch more fish in places that still have a little bit of current as opposed to totally dead water.

 

[sarce]

I forgot about my own thread here! Appreciate the responses guys. I wanted to get out on a float trip for muskies, but came down with the flu around the time I was free to go. Then the holidays were upon me and work has been crazy busy, so fishing got put on hold for a bit. In fact my first fish of December came on Christmas Eve Day.

I got in some trout fishing on warmer days over the holidays and did fairly well on wild browns. This year I've managed to get out once in VA for wild rainbows and had another good day. This upcoming weekend, I'll be hunting large wild browns with a friend. Then in mid-Feb I'll be heading to SW FL for some saltwater action!

The rest of the winter I may take a shot at carp fishing near a warmwater discharge, and I got some intel on winter saltwater fishing in VA Beach area - between all that I just might make it through this winter without going crazy! If I can find somewhere to try for walleyes, I'll give that a shot as well.

 

[Beefheart]

jifigz wrote:
No I dont wade the Susky but I wade the Juniata year round. You don't need to find deep slow water. Any kinds of pockets or cut backs are generally enough to hold fish. I catch more fish in places that still have a little bit of current as opposed to totally dead water.

That's really surprising to me! I really figured the smallies would be hunkered down deep during the winter, hard to reach. Maybe I need to just keep at it with them instead of targeting trout right now. I did just get a sinking line that I haven't yet tried. Sounds like that might be a good tool for some of those pockets and swifter runs. Is it all baitfish in terms of flies? Clousers, Murdichs and that type of thing? I'm guessing the crayfish are not around in the winter and doubt they'd take anything on top, right?

I still haven't fished the Juniata. I'll have to start looking for some access spots to wade that are close to the Susquehanna (I'm coming from Lancaster). Is the water wadeable nearer to the mouth or do you need to travel upriver a ways?

 

[Dave_W]

Beefheart wrote:
Is it all baitfish in terms of flies? Clousers, Murdichs and that type of thing? I'm guessing the crayfish are not around in the winter and doubt they'd take anything on top, right?

Is the water wadeable nearer to the mouth?

Yes and yes.

 

[afishinado]

Beefheart wrote:

jifigz wrote:
No I dont wade the Susky but I wade the Juniata year round. You don't need to find deep slow water. Any kinds of pockets or cut backs are generally enough to hold fish. I catch more fish in places that still have a little bit of current as opposed to totally dead water.

That's really surprising to me! I really figured the smallies would be hunkered down deep during the winter, hard to reach. Maybe I need to just keep at it with them instead of targeting trout right now. I did just get a sinking line that I haven't yet tried. Sounds like that might be a good tool for some of those pockets and swifter runs. Is it all baitfish in terms of flies? Clousers, Murdichs and that type of thing? I'm guessing the crayfish are not around in the winter and doubt they'd take anything on top, right?

I still haven't fished the Juniata. I'll have to start looking for some access spots to wade that are close to the Susquehanna (I'm coming from Lancaster). Is the water wadeable nearer to the mouth or do you need to travel upriver a ways?

Keep at it. Some pics below from a guy that fishes the Susky all the time. these were caught shore / wade fishing this week.

 

[Beefheart]

Okay...my plans to fish Codorus for the first time might take a back seat to checking out some spots on the Susky and maybe trying the Juniata. I'm going to check the spots I established during the summer just to see. I really like tight-lining for trout, but the smallmouth are a whole other level of enjoyment. And really, so much of that is the Susquehanna itself. I really love that river. I should learn its moods during less hospitable seasons.

We've got some sustained warm temps coming up. Rain too, but hopefully not much. I'm going to try this sinking line and fish some unweighted flies. I spent the summer with a floating line, crayfish, poppers and Clousers. Can I fish Clousers on a sinking line? I do have some unweighted bass streamers that should work.

 

[Dave_W]

Here's my first bass of the year (could wind up being my best fish of the year as well), a nice looking 19" fish caught earlier today.

Water temp was 38 degrees and this fish took a brown over white Clouser fished low and slow in a bankside eddy with little current, about 4' deep, and about 3' from a current break. I was fishing from shore.

 

[Beefheart]

Inspiring report and pic! I'm hopefully going to give the winter smallies my first shot on Sunday.

How do you do for numbers in the winter? Do you manage to hook into a good number of fish ranging in sizes or is winter smallmouth fishing more of a search for that one or two willing big ones?

 

[TJones]

Great fish guys! Dave W great job getting that bull bass on the fly... nice to see Dr Yingling still whacking them also

 

[jifigz]

My buddy used to have a nice jet boat and we fished smallies hard in the winter. We poured our own soft plastics and the best was, by far, a tiny paddle tail grub in natural color. Basically, it was just a rather featureless 1.5 inch long plastic rigged on a good quality jig head. We'd have 50 fish days at times, but fishing is generally slower than in fall or spring.

 

[dc410]

Very nice smallie, Dave. What a way to start off the year!

 

[Dave_W]

dc410 wrote:
Very nice smallie, Dave. What a way to start off the year!

Thanks folks, that bass was a thrill and optimistic way to start the 2017 WW season.